Timothy Spangler: Afghan uncertainties

In this March 29 file photo, U.S. soldiers walk past a billboard which encourages Afghan women to vote in the April 5 presidential election, near Pul-e Alam, Afghanistan. SCOTT OLSON, GETTY IMAGES

The recent elections in Afghanistan have provided neither the certainty nor the foundation for future stability that the White House would have preferred. Initial tallies put Ashraf Ghani, an ex-World Bank official, approximately 1 million votes ahead of his opponent, Abdullah Abdullah.

Allegations of fraud on an “industrial scale” were promptly made by the Abdullah camp, as well as suggestions that the former foreign minister should establish his own government in parallel with Ghani’s. Rather than a smooth transfer of power, which could be seen as a significant victory for the Obama administration, Afghanistan, instead, is on the verge of a potentially bloody division along ethnic and geographic lines.

Although the official result will not be announced until July 24, Abdullah has already publicly declared himself the victor, despite receiving only 45 percent of the vote. The de facto opposition leader in Afghanistan’s nascent democracy, Abdullah handily won the first round of voting that occurred in April and was expected to win this runoff with ease.

The 8 million votes counted appear to be in excess of the number of people who actually voted. In particular, Ghani seems to have doubled the number of votes he received when compared to the first round of voting. Between now and July 24, the ballots and polling station records will be examined to determine the extent of the fraud.

While Abdullah is adamant that all fraudulent votes should be disqualified and removed from the final count, Ghani is keen to prevent excessive delays and have a victor declared as soon as possible.

Given that Ghani’s power base is in the south and east among the Pashtuns, while Abdullah’s is in the north and west among the Tajiks, failure to reconcile the two would-be leaders could result in full-fledged civil war.

The United States is pushing for a thorough review of the fraud allegations, but it was unclear how much influence Washington has over the process. Secretary of State John Kerry could try to make use of American financial generosity to cajole both sides towards some form of consensus, but the task will not be easy.

The incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, has been an unreliable ally for Washington in recent years, which has proved awkward for a White House that placed its “Af-Pak strategy” center stage from the earliest days of the Obama administration. Nearly six years on, with a U.S. exit rapidly approaching, there still remains no binding agreement with Kabul to allow U.S. troops to stay on past January 2015.

Since the Taliban was removed from power 13 years ago, Afghanis has sought stability and peace. Under the Karzai regime, the intense rivalries between various ethnic and tribal groups have been suppressed, but not extinguished. A failure to produce a definitive election result acceptable to both factions could leave the country ungovernable as a single political unit.

A fracturing of the country along racial lines could further impede social and economic development, which has been slow despite the large amounts of foreign aid that prop up the wobbling Afghan economy. Even after years of effort and investment, simple indicia of progress, such as the education of young girls, remains unsatisfactory.

Malnutrition is a recurring threat, due to the severe poverty that plagues many parts of the country. A 2012 report by UNICEF estimated that the rate of malnutrition could be as high as 10 percent. A civil war would compound these issues exponentially.

Despite the numerous allegations that have been made against Karzai and his government, the relative stability of his years in power would quickly become only a memory if the uncertainty over the next leader continues for too long.

Although Abdullah can tell his supporters that “without doubt we are the winners of this election,” such claims will only go part of the way to his ultimately being anointed as the next president. As Kerry tries to keep the situation manageable, anger is building among frustrated Afghanis. For example, at a pro-Abdullah rally, his supporters tore down a poster of Karzai to demonstrate their anger.

Should the electoral crisis continue, neither the army nor other governmental or civil organs would likely be able to prevent the splintering of the country. Stability and national unity must be constructed, therefore, in the coming weeks by building consensus among people who otherwise disagree passionately with one another.

As Obama monitors these developments, he no doubt will wonder how the results of this election in Afghanistan will mold his legacy. By prioritizing so highly his “Af-Pak” strategy, it should come as no surprise that this will be a region that historians focus much attention on when accessing the effectiveness of his various foreign policy initiatives.

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